Norway adventure: Part I

Our trip to Norway began on Monday May 18th, we had planned to leave from Pittsburgh airport, fly to Newark & then be in Bergen, Norway by Tuesday evening after a short flight from Oslo.  Our plans, however, took a detour when we were delayed & were unable to make it to Norway until Wed. evening.  All is well that ends well, but airline travel is not my favorite!  We flew from Oslo into the little friendly airport of Bergen.  From the plane we could see the rugged terrain that Norway is famous for, fjords, snow capped mountains, & lots of water.  We arrived in Bergen on Wed. evening to lovely, mild weather & some sun, which is unusual for Bergen, as it is often overcast & rainy....think Seattle.    We were both terribly jet-lagged that first day, but Michael had to dive right into his meeting.  I was fortunate in that I got a much needed nap.  That evening once he was finished at his meeting, we were hungry & wanted to enjoy some seafood.  Our travel book recommended the Unicorn restaurant in the same area as our hotel.  We were staying in the Raddison Blue Royale & it is in the heart of the tourist district called Bryggen.  It is a well-preserved fishing merchant area that mostly dates from 1500-1600s, although it was originally founded earlier.  We walked the short trip to the Unicorn restaurant to enjoy local seafood favorites.  During our dinner, we soon discovered the Norwegian's love of bread.  Bread is plentiful with all the meals & it is delicious!  We knew the girls would love that we had eaten at a restaurant named for Unicorns, hence the pics :)  After we were full from seafood & bread, we took a short walk around the harbor area of Bryggen to get acquainted with our surroundings.  All of the older buildings now contain restaurants & tourist shopping.  Most were previously used for cod liver oil extraction & fish packing.  As I learned a few days later, cod liver oil was used as lamp oil in centuries past & Bryggen was one of the largest trading ports for that commodity in the world.  Bryggen was also a port for fishing & whaling.  Norway (& Japan) continues to hunt some types of whales to this day, which I found strange.  Apparently during WWII the US tried to get the public to eat whale meat rather than beef as they wanted to send beef to the soldiers.  I saw whale meat for sale in the fish market & it did look like beef, I, personally, did not sample any whale meat while in Norway, but Michael, the adventurous eater, did & it looked like undercooked steak.  He said it was unusual.  I found the city of Bergen to be a city with a mix of modern buildings & very old ones as well.  Like in all of Europe I've seen, older buildings are preserved & the history celebrated.  Despite our jet-lag & delay, we had a great first night in Bergen, Norway.